Looped
by Lucillia
Summary: In another universe, Spock accidentally discovers a way to get the "Red Matter" in time to save the Romulan Empire, and saves the Romulan Empire, and saves the Romulan Empire, and saves the Romulan Empire...


Spock sat aboard the Narada alongside it's commanding officer - a Romulan named Nero - carefully cradling a cylinder that contained a very small drop of "Red Matter". Despite its deceptively small size, it was more than enough to do the job it was needed for. He was still quite surprised at how quickly the Vulcan Science Council had handed its small supply of "Red Matter" over. It had already been packaged and ready for transport by the time he had reached Vulcan.

The Romulan mining vessel entered the Hobus system minutes before the star went nova. The crew quickly shot the "Red Matter" out of the nearest torpedo tube and it hit the star just as it was starting to explode, saving the Romulan homeworld and all on it including Nero's wife and unborn child.

Unfortunately, the ship ended up being caught in the gravity well of the newly formed black hole.

After they realized escape was impossible, Nero allowed the crew to spend their last few minutes calling home. It was while Nero was telling his wife that he loved her that Spock realized that he had nobody to call and that he was distressed by that fact. It was with many tearful goodbyes from the few that had actually been reached rather than their answering machines that the Narada was sucked through the event horizon.

Nobody was more surprised than Spock when the ship actually survived the trip through the black hole. The fact that they were hundreds of light years away from their starting point was only slightly less surprising. Considering the fact that they were now in Federation space, being hailed by a Federation Starship wasn't all that surprising.

While Nero tried to answer the questions from the ship's captain - man named Robau who looked like a younger version of Admiral Robau who was one of Spock's instructors at the Starfleet Academy - Spock took in the details of the bridge of the ship that called itself the USS Kelvin.

"Fascinating." Spock said raising his left eyebrow in his signature move.

"What's fascinating?" Nero asked whirling away from the communications display.

"We seem to have traveled back in time." Spock said. "Based on the information I have at hand, I would say that we traveled back roughly a hundred and fifty-four years three months and thirteen days."

Nero looked at Spock in stunned bewilderment.

"How did you come by that figure?" Ayel, Nero's second in command and Science Officer asked.

"The ship's first officer mentioned that his wife was in labor and asked to accompany her." Spock replied.

"How exactly does that add up to the figure you gave us?" Ayel asked looking even more confused than before.

"Commander George Samuel Kirk Sr. only fathered two children. At the time of the birth of his elder son George Samuel Kirk Jr. he was not the first officer of the USS Kelvin. Logically I must assume that the birth he is attending is that of his younger son." Spock replied.

Ayel, turned back to his station satisfied with Ambassador Spock's assessment of the situation.

"One thing confuses me though." Spock said.

"What?" Nero asked, briefly turning away from Captain Robau's interrogation.

"Starfleet regulations aside..." Spock began noticing a slight wince from Captain Robau that indicated that he was listening in via a universal translator "The records of George Kirk's younger son indicated that he was born in Riverside Iowa. He was supposed to have been born when his mother went into labor after tripping over a pig at their family farm."

"We get sucked into a black hole and hurled back in time to before you were born and you're worried about the fact that someone wasn't born where they were supposed to be?" Nero asked incredulously.

"Actually, I was born ten months and two days before this point in time." Spock commented.

Nero however wasn't listening. He was still trying to convince Captain Robau that the Narada was a mining vessel (which it was).

"It would seem that I was more disoriented by our journey through the black hole than I realized." Spock said after appearing to listen to the conversation for a good hour while he instead let his mind wander, realized his mind was wandering, and began to realize why his mind was wandering, namely a mild concussion he had gotten when he hit his head on a console during the trip through the black hole.

"I should have invoked the Temporal Prime Directive the instant I noticed that we had traveled backwards in time instead of reminiscing about the past and divulging unnecessary information." Spock said.

Nero growled in frustration. He'd felt like banging his head against a wall repeatedly for the past half-hour. The captain of the other vessel was exceedingly dense.

"You mean that I could have just avoided the most aggravating conversation in my entire life if you thought of that a little sooner?!" Nero shouted at Spock before shoving him to the spot that would put him front and center on the other ship's screen.

"Start talking, I'm off to get drunk." Nero said. Today had been the weirdest and possibly worst day of his entire life.

What followed was a long conversation in which Spock was stuck explaining the Temporal Prime Directive a century before it was officially on the books to the incredulous Captain Robau and how knowing who he was would violate it. The fact that he now had a pounding headache and his mind kept wandering off wasn't helping any. After going over the number of frustrating situations he had found himself in during the other times he'd been stuck traveling through time a second time, he came to a realization. He hadn't had to sit through this entire conversation at all. Thanks to his concussion, he had just wasted a couple hours of everyone's time.

"Ayel, can you get me some pain medication. I need to start calculations for a time warp." Spock said.

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Captain Robau watched as the vessel he believed to be some sort of Romulan warship prototype started heading away at a speed he couldn't hope to match. He had tried stalling it so more ships could come to back him up and failed. Now it was off to cause lord knew how much damage to the Federation.

Suddenly, it swung around behind a nearby star and vanished.

Standing the ship down from its Red Alert since the other vessel appeared to be gone and sending a warning out to the rest of the fleet, he couldn't help but smile when George announced that he now had a son. He couldn't help but frown when he realized that the Romulans who claimed to be from the future knew that the child would be a boy despite the fact that the Kirks had decided to let the child's gender be a surprise. He wondered how they knew that the Kirks had a farm in Riverside Iowa as well.

An hour later, when the proud George Kirk was showing his newborn son off to the bridge crew, the ship returned - appearing out of nowhere - and hailed them.

"This is Captain Robau of the USS Kelvin. " Robau said trying to hide his fear of the other vessel and his surprise when a human appeared onscreen.

"This is Ambassador Jean-Luc Picard of Earth aboard the Romulan Mining Vessel Narada." The man in what Robau presumed was formal attire from the future said.

"What do you want?" Captain Robau asked, watching as George was torn between his duty on the bridge and getting his son to safety.

"We would like to put forth a request for a decision from the Vulcan Science Council for a petition to use an as yet uninvented substance to be made no later than May 22nd 2387." Picard said.


End file.
